There's a trader in my office that's been net profitable for each month of the last 7 years, is that long enough for you?
I knew many consistently net profitable traders. The problem was that they could make much more money at a 9 to 5 job with far less stress. What good is being net profitable if you're only pulling in $30-60K per year after commissions? That's why most of them are no longer daytrading.
whether day trading or long haul investment, the key to success is discipline, do what suits you. if you do investment, and you can not resist checking the quote, you are not able to succeed in investment, most people can not do it! that is why we only have one Warren Buffet. do not parrot Warren Buffet since most people are afraid of picking bottoms or selling tops. like two months ago, ABK/MBI ... the financial secotors/airlines are in the bottom, how many of you bought it and hold it till now? if you hold, your money at least tripled even seven fold like ABK!
this is a stupid thread. there are losers and winners in the long run and that's it. thing is daytraders that make consistent money, most of them are smart enough to park their money into safe investments like real estate, other businesses, venture into new projects, etc. you can't do this tens of years because the routine gets to you... and when you decide you want to retire, you've got other things you grew with daytrading money .... 90% of ETers are at the "can it be done?" stage, while 10% are "ok... what do i do with this money". that's why 10% don't really post on ET...they have other stuff to do.... plenty of stuff
so the basic thing you can do is day trading. from day trading, build your wealth, even though take time and hard work, but you must understand one fact: nothing is automatic, particularly making money. in the case of investment, you still need frequently check the market fundamentally and technically, you must know where to get in and where to cut loss and where to get out, it looks just buy and hold or short and hold, but still lots of work to do, only naives believe in lottery ticket, like old movies, someone's grandpa bought some stcoks and his grandson found his stock certificate after his death and all are in the sky.... this kind of stories are misleading or just people's day dream investment/trading is just like any other profession, you need time, hard work, diligence and knowledge, all the skills to manage yourself, hard to grasp then you imagine, but the reward is huge huge
That's the hardest part Lindq and is an ongoing battle for most traders even the successful ones. Most systems work in some form it's the ones operating the trading systems is where the problem lies. I have been trading for 3 years and I still have idiotic trades from time to time. Shoot, I still havn't mastered true trading patience. As with any learned skill you get better with time. The thing with trading, lots of traders lose their money during the time of learning to trade. Trading, the true test of time vs. money! Good luck to all.. Happy Pip Hunting!!!
If trading is overly stressful, why bother? I find trading to be fascinating, despite the heavy tuition I've paid, because the greatest thing I've learned is that the market always has something to give, every single day. The profitable trades I made were profitable because I followed my rules. Losses I've taken when following my rules have been minor. When I violate my rules or my plan, the losses have been large. You never believe it in the beginning because you always think "it can't possibly get worse", but cutting losses quickly is the key to profitability. Even a clueless trader can stay in the game a long time if s/he cuts losses quickly; a well-prepared trader can produce profits week after week. Check out the P&L 2008 thread if you don't think there are profitable day traders.
I've day traded NASDAQ equities since 2001 profitable. Find a system that works for you. Enough said.
In order to make any kind of money trading longer term you HAVE to trade OPM. You just don't have that big of an edge w/ trades of that length